so play the game until you run out
by McChanged
Summary: And really, in Santana's opinion, Sam's black eye is not her fault because he should have known not to step in front of Puck when his eyes were that color. / Ensemble.
1. Chapter 1

This was an accident. LaTotES was supposed to be finished before I started a new story, but apparently Sikens has flipped my switch from writer's block. I actually really like this idea, and though I have yet to figure out how far I'm going to go with it, I hope you enjoy it too. I want to give major props to _beyond-the-twilight_ for always encouraging me, and making sure that I'm not just jumping into this. She deserves cookies. All mistakes are still mine though.

12/10 - I've recently been posting on AO3 under the name _Mamihlapinatapai,_ and while doing such, have been doing some editing. Today, because I'm crazy, I've decided to update everything on here. The changes won't affect the story line, it's just to clean everything up a bit.

* * *

Noah Puckerman doesn't like jail.

He went to juvie once in high school, and spent most of it in the fetal position praying that the guy who looked like a thirty-two year old Cuban dictator didn't make him his bitch the entire time. So, yeah, Noah really, really hates jail, and judging by the amount of time it's taking Santana to saw through this safe doesn't bode well for his future.

"Fucking hell, can you move any slower. There's only so long Sam's video feed will hold before the rent-a-cop downstairs get suspicious." He's pacing, checking and rechecking the radio like it will explode in his hands. (Which has happened before, thank you very little, so it's probably a legitimate concern.)

Santana Lopez, a name more counterfeit than the eyelashes she fluttered at the guy who was remaking her passport in Portugal, turns, eyes flashing and Puck's fingers twitch.

"Puckerman, I swear to god I will drop you right here, and take your cut to buy myself a new 'retrieval specialist'. Now shut the hell up so I can focus." And the thing about her is that he doesn't doubt she would do it for a second. It's not like they always worked together, and he's not too eager to discover what happned to the guy before him.

(She's not really _into_ loose ends.)

So he backs away, hands in the air with fake surrender, and goes to dial Sam two floors below. He doesn't even get a word out before the hacker's voice is crackling over the radio in his hand.

"Dude, Brittany's hot but she can only distract Cooper for so long. Has Santana lost her touch?" Puck starts to laugh until he catches a glare in his peripheral, and for the sake of his and Sam's lives, stops abruptly.

"She just needs a couple more seconds, this safe is a little trickier than we thought. Is everyone still at the party?" At the thought, he loosens the tie wrapped around his neck, and frowns at the prospect of scaling anything with the ridiculous shoes he's wearing.

"No, everybody is still as drunk as ever," and then Sam reads his mind because that's what people who have worked together for so long do. "There's gym shoes in your bag, if you need them."

The smile forms unconsciously, but he still pulls them out, slipping them on, before moving to Santana's bag and tossing her a pair, too.

For a few mintues, it's silent, and then enough static to hear a muffled, slightly mumbled, curse. Even after that, it still takes Sam a couple seconds to say anything.

"So by the way, you owe Brittany a new dress because apparently she ripped hers bashing Copper over the head, and I paid last time."

"I thought she was supposed to be distracting him."

"She was."

Puck laughs before sending a glance towards the brunette across the room, just in time for her present the open safe with a raised eyebrow and a flick of her wrist; he sighs before tossing her the radio so that both of his hands are free.

The radio crackles back to life as he's unloading the last of the blood diamonds and manila envelopes into the black bags at his feet, and Santana's throwing equipment into her own bag.

"Uh, guys, I think we may have a problem." The ice cold barrel of a silencer is pressed to the back of his head and Santana, because she's a quick bitch, pulls her own gun. But really, the way her eyes widen slightly doesn't bode well for his brain's grey matter.

-0-

He got into this field accidently.

He's living in Seattle, name: Ben Puckerman age: twenty-two, and he is paying rent with the money from both illegal fights he's won and illegal fights he's thrown because there's nothing quite like simultaneously beating the shit out of someone and cheating people out of their (probably) hard earned money, in his mind.

In May, two weeks before his twenty-third birthday, a stunning brunette leans across the counter of a bar he had been wiping down, and offers him a new life.

Said new life included the same thing he's been doing, except now he's paid to never to _lose_ a fight. The brunette, who he learns goes by Santana and Maria and sometimes Elizabeth when they're in any southern continents, introduces him to the other two people in this misfit team she's assembled.

Sam Evans doesn't even flinch when Santana introduces him in a shady warehouse on the outskirts on the city. The fake name is obvious, as is _Brittany's_, the pretty blonde who knows how to quitely disarm anyone with a smile and a well placed elbow, so when Sam sticks his hand out, Ben doesn't hesitate. Thinks of the way his mother had whispered _Noah_ across his face in her hospital room, two years before his brother had been put into the ground.

"The name's Noah, you can call me Puck though."

-0-

It takes awhile to learn their habits. To get comfortable with San's snark that is supposed to be interpreted as some screwed up sort of affection, or Brittany's habit of playing up _dumb blonde_ even though she knows more languages than he thought the world _had_, but probably nothing takes as long as getting used to the fact that Sam smiles all the time. And _means_ it.

But, eventually, it's second nature, so that's why it throws him so off guard when, in September of the same year they find him, Brittany drops off the map.

Santana isn't amused, but there's worry lines around her eyes, and Sam spends two tense days tracking everything from Brittany's cell phone records to the serial numbers on the bills she always keeps in her pockets. On the third day, her cell turns on and they drive six hours into California just to find her unconscious on a warehouse floor, blood matting her hair. They drive her back to Seattle, and after making sure she's not concussed, and or, into something deep enough that it earns them _all_ a bullet, she spills the story.

Apparently, on her way up the stairwell in her temporary apartment (because elevators are just looking for trouble, _duh_ Puckerman) she had been blind-sided. There's a gaping hole in her memory after that, and Puck really thinks they should check for a concussion, again. Santana paces the floor of the hallway and the hotel room and the warehouse, when they're there, so that two days later when Sam's laptop pings with a name, Puck doesn't know whether to be grateful that they know who did this to Brittany or relieved that Santana's rage can be directed at _someone_, so it won't just explode and take him as collateral damage or whatever.

His name's James Cooper, a filthy rich American billionaire working out of France, who has a propensity for illegal blood diamonds and child labor. Brittany had stolen two million worth six years ago, and apparently he has a tiny problem with letting the little things go. So he had cleaned out her apartment, her Seattle storage unit, and a disorienting blow to the head was sufficient.

Fortunately, not only does Brittany have storage units all over the continental United States, not that Puck wants to see _any_ of them, but everyone seems to agree that taking Cooper for all that he's worth and giving him a much earned jail cell, wouldn't be pushing the limits of revenge _too_ far. And yeah, they tend to take no hostages when it comes to their own.

Four plane tickets were purchased three weeks before a perfectly well-timed benefit honoring the stunning donations of one Mr. James Cooper to the poor little African children he was secretly exploiting. Only Santana and Puck had tickets into the benefit, which were obtained through no shortage of debt repayments and short skirts, but getting Brittany and Sam in through the roof on the fiftieth floor was easy enough. So while they went to clear out every document from Cooper's personal office, and Sam made his way to the security office on the fotieth floor, Brittany kidnapped Cooper from his own party.

All this means is that Puck was really expecting an easy night of revenge and blackmail, and instead got the threat of a bullet through his skull.

Given the circumstances, he would have chosen prison.


	2. Chapter 2

12/10 - I've recently been posting on AO3 under the name _Mamihlapinatapai,_ and while doing such, have been doing some editing. Today, because I'm crazy, I've decided to update everything on here. The changes won't affect the story line, it's just to clean everything up a bit.

* * *

Santana thinks that of all the ways this job could have ended, Puck getting a gun pressed to the back of his head isn't the worst.

He seems to disagree.

Maybe because after five agonizing seconds of waiting for someone to start shooting, the woman had shifted a step back, had wished them happy hunting, and then released a short, annoyingly high pitched, whistle that had three shadows simultaneously shifting towards the door. A blonde woman with and a beretta clutched in one palm, an Asian man who shifted along the wall in such a surreal way that Santana only caught glimpses of him here or there, and black man who actually looked a little apologetic as he crossed the threshold, which contrasted sharply with the knife he sheathed as he went. And finally the brunette with the silencer, who is just so freaking _tiny_, that Puck had flushed hot with embarrassment at being terrified of her for that brief moment when he couldn't see her.

The idea that any of them had been hiding there since Santana and Puck had walked through the door, let alone the fact that they had gotten the drop on them, made Puck _itch_.

At least that had been the speech Puck was shouting at them for the last ten minutes. And since she's Santana Lopez and no one, _no one_, gets to yell at her and keep their fingers, she can't help but point out that if Puck hadn't freaked out like a little _schoolgirl_ after they were gone he wouldn't had distracted Sam. And in turn Sam would have seen Cooper's guard approach Brittany quietly enough to be drowned out by Puck's said freaking and would have been able to warn her before the man had taken a shot that went just wide enough to leave a ugly line by her temple.

"Fuck you, Lopez. Last time I checked you would break a guy's _dick_ for waving a gun in your general direction."

They're in Sam's hotel room, and the retrieval specialist has been pacing the floor for the past half an hour, rubbing the red mark on the back of his head. Santana, for her part, is leaning up against the wall, tracing his path with her eyes and watching Sam press a towel to Brittany's forehead.

"Oh, I'm sorry," she drawls lazily, because she knows it pisses him off to no end, "for not jumping the gun and rushing her. I figured you liked the back of your head intact, but don't worry next time, _I'll take the risk_."

In reality, she had wanted to when she saw who was standing on the other side of the 9mm, but the girl's trigger finger had always been half a second faster than Santana's, so she had settled on waiting.

"Is bitch like your default setting, or did you acquire it during the job?"

She tenses, her lips tipping up into something that would make a covert ops agent back down with his tail between his legs, but at this point Puck couldn't really care less.

"Go to hell, _Puckerman_."

"You first, _Lopez_."

Sam steps in somewhere between the time it takes Santana's fingers to twitch for her weapon, and for Puck to take a giant step forward.

"Fucking hell, guys, can you two tear each other apart _later_, because last time I checked this whole _being blackmailed_ problem is a little more important than your pissing contest."

He was right, and Puck knew it. But the minute the woman had pressed herself flat to his back and practically purred directions into his ear, he had been hot. Not the good type of hot, but the 'I want to fuck shit up' type of hot.

If Puck was a good guy, he would step back. Santana feeds off other people's anger and he knows that she'd let it go if he did. If Puck was a decent human being, he'd back off for the sake of the warm body that's in between them, because Santana's a team player but rage makes her a little blind to the line.

Unfortunately, he is neither of those things.

"Last time I checked," he snarls closing the distance until his chest is inches from Sam's palm, "the only reason were _being_ blackmailed is because Santana can't seem to keep it in check enough to aviod pissing off people who know how to _kill us_."

Brittany, who has been patiently holding a towel to the mess that is the wound on her forehead, inhales slightly.

Santana's eyes have always been a best feature, but the way they light golden red is part of the reason so many men spend their time deciding whether shooting her would be worth it.

Sam makes a strangled noise in the back of his throat, and puts enough force behind a shove that Puck stumbles back a few feet.

"Knock it off," he warns, and the little shit knows that Puck actually will when he pulls that face. The girls refer to it as 'earnest annoyance'; Puck calls it fucking ridiculous.

Santana's mouth have the edges of a smirk when Sam turns towards her.

"You, too. Now who the hell is she?"

Santana sighs, frustrated, "Can someone at least stitch up Brittany's forehead before she bleeds to death?"

And yeah, Puck feels a twinge of guilt because Brittany is the only one with actual _threatening_ damage and she was twenty floors below them. So he turns his back on the fiery brunnette, apparently he's always had a death wish, and picks up the first-aid kit off the desk.

"Go ahead. We're all entrhalled to here how you managed this one."

She sighs again, but drops down Indian style to the floor. Puck sits on the wooden coffee table in front of the couch so he can reach Brittany, but Sam stays standing because he's an expert at mood swings, and knows how fast they can turn on each other.

"Her name's Rachel Berry. And I didn't do to anything _to_ her, technically."

Brittany snorts, the fact that she's used to the prick of a needle in her skin obvious, and speaks for the first time since they got back.

"And by _technically_, she means she double-crossed her, stole everything, and handed her over to the Feds to be charged with a list of crimes _she_ committed."

Santana rolls her eyes, "It's not like I planned for her to escape. I've always had far more connections than she has." And then a smirk, "But really, who knew size _didn't_ matter."

And really, in Santana's opinion, Sam's black eye is _not_ her fault, because he should have known not to step in front of Puck when his eyes were _that_ color.


End file.
